10 Most Shocking And Strange Facts About Famous Horror Movies

10. Leatherface Drew Blood On Screen For Real

Notorious in its time and now rightly revered, The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains a gruelling watch even compared to the most bloodthirsty horrors of today. This is in large part thanks to the movie's scuzzy, gritty look which may have been borne out of necessity as much as it was a stylistic choice.

For his independent production director Tobe Hooper was working with an extremely limited budget. This meant that set decorations and props such as the animal bones, feathers and carcasses scattering the set were in fact real, while cast and crew were extremely low paid. Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen, reportedly received around $800 for an entire summer's worth of work and John Larroquette's fee for narrating the movie's introduction was just a single joint of marijuana.

This factor no doubt heavily influenced what transpired during filming of the infamous dinner scene, where the Sawyer family torture and terrorise Marilyn Burns as Sally. With blackout curtains used to block the daylight outside, temperatures on that dining room set rose to around 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The stink of the already smelly cast, who had to endure wearing the same unwashed costumes for days on end, was soon joined by the smell of rotting meat. It became so unbearable that some of the actors would go outside to vomit between takes.

It was at some point in this twenty seven hour shoot, that Hansen was required to simulate cutting Burns' finger with a prop knife. But when the prop knife failed a fatigued and frustrated Hansen opted to use a real knife to actually slice her finger, just so they could finish the scene.

Neither Burns nor John Dugan, the actor who as Grandpa Sawyer then had to suck the wounded finger, knew what had really happened until years later at a postscreening Q&A.